


Battle Born

by ElwritesFanworks



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Boromir Lives, Boys Being Boys, Deepthroating, Denethor's A+ Parenting, Drinking & Talking, Drunk Sex, Drunken Shenanigans, Ear play, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Facials, Falling In Love, Finger Sucking, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Haldir lives, Happy Sex, Healing, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Major Character Injury, Making Love, Nipple Play, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Outdoor Sex, Paralysis, Permanent Injury, Poor Boromir, Poor Haldir, Post-Battle of the Hornburg | Battle of Helm's Deep, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Orgasms, Regret, Rough Oral Sex, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sexual Dysfunction, Soldiers, Urination, Wartime Romance, armpit kissing, sex after a spinal injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-04-28 01:52:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14438934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElwritesFanworks/pseuds/ElwritesFanworks
Summary: Movieverse. Haldir survives his injuries sustained at the Battle of Helm's Deep, but is permanently paralyzed as a result of a blade-strike to his spine. Elven magic saves his life, but cannot undo all the damage. He struggles to come to terms with his new role as wounded veteran, as such injuries are not typical in elven society (but battlefield medicine - even for elves - is not as good as the kind of restorative healing he would need to fully regain use of his legs.) Meanwhile, Boromir, who survived his injuries (which have admittedly been toned down a bit to make that possible,) has remained deeply mentally disturbed and haunted by trauma. Legolas, in an effort to help Haldir (who he briefly had an almost-fling with once, and thus for whom feels residual affection) ultimately suggests the two wounded soldiers work together to heal their respective wounds. This leads to an eventual relationship of the 'ultimate rarepair' variety.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a one-shot Haldir/Legolas fic, but then I started talking to my mother about it and somehow it morphed into this. When I suggested Haldir/Boromir as a rarepair, she said 'actually, that works really well, and they'd probably have more in common than they'd think.'
> 
> I started thinking about it and... honestly yeah, they would. Both are military types. Both understand court behaviour and life, given their places in their relative societies with Haldir serving his Lord and Lady and Boromir being raised to be a steward of Gondor... so yeah.
> 
> Somehow that turned into this. But I decided to leave a past 'love that never was' flame for him and Legolas, as well as ultimately have Legolas wind up with Gimli because I couldn't just have him wind up alone. This chapter is very Legolas/Haldir centric, but the future ones won't be. Also - Haldir is pretty negative on being injured as he is for the moment, but in time I want to show how he can and will find a new role for himself as well as sexual fulfillment. I'm guessing based on where he was stabbed he got injured in the thoracic vertebrae region, and there's a good chance that with neuroplasticity (or in his case, super-speedy elf healing) he could eventually re-route his sensory impulses enough to one day have a different sort of sex life, but a fulfilling and ultimately beautiful one. I have known a few people with similar or equivalent issues over the years, and think it's important that people realize that there isn't just one way to have good sex or to live a good life. So this will ultimately wind up being a pretty affirming fic.

* * *

When the drums had ceased and the hideous maelstrom of blade-against-blade had given way to the heavy silence of grief, the survivors came, like ants from the anthill, to pick over what remained. The enemy’s corpses could not be left to bloat and stink – they had to be piled in great heaps and burned. The heroic war-dead had to be collected – identified if possible, though there were many too mangled to be sure of. Funerals would be held, bodies prepared for burial. The wounded who survived would be healed, or – if recovery was not possible – given comfort.

Death was no longer shocking to Legolas. He had seen enough orcs gurgle helplessly as arrows pierced their throats to have accepted the gruesome reality of combat. Immortality was not fool-proof – he could die as easily as a man, if wounded gravely. Still, he found there was something uncanny and sickening to be seen in the vacant eyes of his fallen kin. He did not feel the same wrongness to see the human dead, for their lives were short and often cruel. He could not say he understood the grief of the women who wept over fathers and sons, who wailed and tore at their hair and clothes and held one another. Elves mourned differently. He could sympathize with the loss, but marked the difference nonetheless – the women’s grief, a rapid flood in spring, a river rushing, bursting its banks, tearing down everything in its path. Elven grief was more like a rock being lapped at slowly by a tranquil stream. The human tragedy was louder, more explosive, but the grief of his own people was the type that could wear a soul away until all was lost – the centuries of slow erosion of the heart.

Moving corpses in the sun, the prince reflected on death. He rolled a swollen orc onto the cart where those bound for the pyre were laid. The hot flesh sank in on itself like a pumpkin rotting in a field. Entrails slopped onto the grass and the smell of it was enough to make your eyes stream and your stomach heave. Flies, enticed by the putrefaction, began to dance around the open guts. Legolas shooed away the few who tried to land on his face as he bent low and, grimacing, heaved the carcase onto the cart in two wet pieces.

The low groan that followed did not startle him at first. Bodies made all manner of disconcerting noises when the parts that held them all together began to decay. It was common enough to stumble upon a mottled, peeling unfortunate and find it passing wind – indeed, it was one of those queer things that could seem funny if recounted between soldiers, though it was hardly to be spoken of in mixed company. The dead were never truly still, changing and darkening and bloating and pushing out insides. He’d seen two men fallen, sexes straining, erect in death, and many more who soiled themselves as their muscles slackened. A low groan, really, wasn’t that uncommon from a cadaver at all. Words, however, were another matter entirely.

At first, Legolas swore he was hearing things – perhaps so much time spent out among the fumes of death had disrupted him in some way – but no. No, it was clear – a low pleading – as much a prayer as a cry for help, almost incomprehensible for the way it was muffled and slurred.

And not in the Common Tongue, he realized with clarity. In elvish.

Abandoning the corpse cart, Legolas followed the feeble begging to a heap of corpses a few strides away. Part of a wall had collapsed, and debris and dead orcs lay in a hideous tangle.

_A tangle that speaks._

Up close, the words became clearer.

_“Kill me, please. Let me die. Kill me.”_

A chill descended over Legolas. The voice was vaguely familiar, but so hoarse and faint he could not know from where. With haste and far less care than he feared he should use, given that the owner of the voice was likely injured, Legolas began to dig, kicking orc limbs away and scrabbling with his hands to shift the rubble. All at once, he stilled, recognizing in an instant the profile and the uniform of the elf who lay before him.

“Haldir,” he exclaimed, “Haldir – you are not alone! Can you hear me?”

Rather than speak, the elf opened his eyes, staring up into the sky with such a look of anguish in them that it made the prince falter. Tears streamed down from the corners of the marchwarden’s eyes.

“Haldir,” Legolas repeated, “it is I – Legolas of Mirkwood. Can you move?”

Haldir shook his head slowly, sobbing silently, his mouth a tight line.

“Are you in great pain?”

He shook his head again, then rasped,

“Leave me, prince.”

Legolas stared at him, stunned.

“You are alive, Haldir – we can –”

“Let me die here. Please,” he hissed, eyes shutting tightly once again. Legolas frowned, but resumed his task of digging out the wounded elf. All the while, Haldir murmured ‘no, no’ and occasionally ‘please,’ his face damp with pain-sweat. When Legolas got him free, he saw why.

The elf had been stabbed in the back – that much he knew without looking, as Aragorn had seen it happen. He had then had his legs crushed with debris. The way they lay looked odd, not broken, but boneless, as though he had no strength in them at all.

“Do you think you can stand?” he asked, though he doubted very much that Haldir could so much as sit up, hurt as he was.

“No.”

“I’ll go get a litter for you – I’m coming back, Haldir, I promise.”

He did not respond, but muttered still, a miserable litany of despair that disturbed Legolas far more than any of the battlefield carnage. It was not natural for a warrior of the Galadhrim to beg for death.

Even after he’d fetched the litter, and two elves to help carry the wounded captain away, he was tense and restless. The healers got to work, elven magic doing its best, but Haldir had been lying in filth and rotting blood for three days, and though the healers were trained, they lacked the potency and power of those found in royal elven courts. Battlefield medicine was, by nature, cruder than its civilian form. Still, Haldir did not die – though he was given draughts to make him sleep, as his fevered ranting disturbed the other wounded in their sickbeds.

On the fifth day since the battle – two days since he was recovered – Haldir lingered on. Legolas felt compelled to visit him, but there was no need – nothing he could do. Anyhow, he barely knew the marchwarden. They had shared a conversation in Lórien about Gandalf’s passing, and Haldir had invited him to walk among the trees and share his grief. It had helped, had been civil, and perhaps there had been more than civility in the marchwarden’s eyes, but he had not asserted it, and Legolas had been too road-weary and heavy-hearted to find out. Still, the low simmer of interest had not entirely gone, and what might have been seemed so far removed from what was that he found himself revisiting their conversation in his memory, rewriting it so that he had been willing. If he had followed Haldir to his talan, he was sure he would have taken his pleasure with him. Now, the whispers in the halls said the warrior might never take pleasure again.

“You care for him,” Aragorn remarked gently, when a pacing Legolas moved to make yet another journey around the castle. The ranger had secluded himself in the shadows of a balcony, looking out over the field of battle. Most of the bodies had been moved and burned, or taken back and buried, but the ground was still rust-red and black with the blood of men, elves, and orcs.

“I hardly know him,” Legolas countered. “I might have… once. The time was… inopportune.”

Aragorn said nothing, but he lit his pipe and began to smoke, silently inviting the elf to continue.

“When one lives as long as we do… it is easy to forget the value of a moment. Time is perplexingly easy to squander, I find.”

“Mm.”

Aragorn exhaled thoughtfully, eyes fixed on some point in the distance.

“The rumors worry you,” he prompted. “That he’ll be… changed.”

“Is it so selfish of me to wonder at such a loss? I worry as much for his sake as for mine. A warrior who cannot fight is a tragic thing to behold, like a horse gone lame, or a captive bird. He will always want to be what he was. He will always be yearning, unless the loss itself kills him.”

“He may still be akin to who he was – war leaves no one unchanged.”

“Yes, but…” Legolas had to blink back a sudden rush of tears as the horror of his words struck him, “to be unable to stand in… either sense – to be unable to fight, to walk? Perhaps he was right to beg for death.”

Aragorn looked at him for a long moment.

“I do not… it was wrong of me to say that,” Legolas lamented. “Of course, I am glad that he lives.”

Aragorn shook his head.

“You are not wrong to dismay at the cost of war. Men cut down in their prime need not die to have sacrificed far greater than seems just. Still, he has healers with him – he has hope. I daresay he has a far better chance thanks to your finding him than he would have had, wasting away with fever while orcs rotted around him.”

Legolas could not suppress the shudder those words conjured in him – the image of it, that awful contrast of elf beauty and gore haunted him.

“I often thought Arwen unlucky, to have lost her heart to a mortal man,” Legolas admitted, “but even immortality cannot guarantee happiness. I think I understand it, now – her choice. An eternity spent rueing squandered moments would be a torment no elf could bear without fading.”

“Then don’t squander them,” Aragorn smiled gently. “Go – we can do without your pacing the halls for a time. Go sit by your marchwarden. Let him wake to something comelier than stone walls and torchlight.”

Legolas nodded and took his leave. He found Haldir much as he’d left him – unconscious and pale. The healers looked up as the prince approached, then bowed their heads in respect, for they knew their kinsman was Thranduil’s son by looks alone.

“He sleeps still,” Legolas murmured, concern creasing his brow.

“We have made him sleep,” the female healer said kindly. “He was resisting bedrest.”

She said it lightly, as though it was a common thing among warriors. To some extent, it was – at least among warriors like Haldir – but there was a wistfulness in her eyes that spoke to something grave.

“What of his future – will he recover?”

“The prognosis has not changed dramatically since last we spoke,” she admitted. “I’m afraid there is no doubt about it, now. When the blade cleaved open Haldir’s back, it struck his spinal column and something was severed. When he was awake, we tested it – he could not feel it when we pricked his toes with a needle or pinched his thighs. We were above his navel before he reacted at all.”

Legolas stared down at the sleep-slack face that had been both guarded and inviting in the Golden Wood.

“A puppet with its strings cut,” the prince muttered to himself, chest tight with pity.

“Do not lose hope – it is true, his fighting days are behind him, now, but he heals well. Already his body is adapting to these changes – he is as a human would be in two, even three years on from the time of his injury. He will not feel disorientation or clumsiness when he wakes – there will be no sense of incoordination.”

_But what of his mind? Surely, he will feel the loss and impotence and –_

“His hair is loose,” Legolas said, a question in his voice.

“We thought it best a comrade or companion see to it. Would you care for privacy?”

“Yes.”

The healer nodded and beckoned for her apprentice who followed behind her. She hesitated at the door and added:

“He may wake, but if he does he should be lucid. If he isn’t, or if he becomes distressed, send for one of us and we will bring him another draught.”

“Thank you.”

The healers left, and closed the plain wood door behind them, and Legolas found himself in the close quiet of a grain-store converted into a sickroom. The sacks of flour and dried grain dampened the sound of voices from the halls. Lit by a single candle, the room was golden and peaceful. In the flickering light, Haldir’s hair shone, and Legolas pulled a low stool close to the bed, taking a seat beside the invalid’s head. He used his own comb – a slim one he had fashioned himself out of a bit of fallen antler – and began to gently separate the knots and tangles. He hummed as he worked, taking great care whenever he came across a stubborn patch.

When the last of the strands were straightened, Legolas considered the braids he knew – from simple and battle-ready to ceremonial and ornate. He settled on a complex five-strand weave that came together like knotwork – something befitting a war hero, he mused. Besides that, it was complicated and gave him something to do with his hands, which twitched with energy at being otherwise unable to help the wounded captain.

“You fought so bravely, friend,” he said softly. “You are a glorious example to your men. I have thought back to that night in Lothlórien when you took a walk with me. I have thought, oh, what would my father say, to know I’d been walking late at night with a handsome soldier who smiles at me so sweetly? I think, at the time, I feared what people might say – a prince and a marchwarden. You’re more than that, now – you are a veteran of the Battle of Helm’s Deep, and your chest will be all but crushed by the medals I’ll see pinned to it. Everyone will admire you, then, even my father. Can you imagine? Sunlight in your hair and on your armor, and a monument made to honour those who fought here. You would look more god than elf, I think.”

He babbled on, mostly for his own comfort, not intending to be heard by Haldir, who slumbered still.

“It is funny, I think. Perhaps not – you might have found it funny – but Gimli showed me a spot of grass where some orc blood fell, and the mark looks surprisingly like a woman’s – well, it was quite the sight. Ah, perhaps you won't find it funny. I have been wading through piles of the dead for days now and –”

“Hold on – looked like a woman’s _what?”_

The voice was faint but it still startled Legolas enough that he dropped his half-finished plait in surprise. Haldir cracked open his eyes, lips curling in a bemused smile.

“You’ve been listening…?” Legolas spluttered.

“Aye. Does it displease you?”

“No – but if I’d known you were awake I would have spoken to you and not at you.”

“Good you didn’t know, then. I liked to hear how I was… how did you put it? More god than elf? That sort of talk could give a person airs, you know.”

Legolas blushed and resumed his plaiting.

“I meant it,” he admitted. “I will not survive Helm’s Deep only to learn nothing and remain mired in regret. I wish I had followed you back to your talan in Lothlórien.”

Something like regret passed over the marchwarden’s face.

“Aye, as do I. A pity. I’d have taken you hard and rough like a soldier and left bruises on your throat and hips.”

Legolas shivered at the thought.

“You would have… marked me, then?”

“I’d have held onto you with my teeth if you let me, like animals in rut.”

It was strange, how good it felt to speak of it. In the wake of battle, the notion of talking to a near stranger about bed-sport did not seem so improbable.

“Did you often take partners this way?”

“Only the pretty ones,” Haldir said wistfully. “You’d have been pretty enough that I’d have risked it and fucked you on the platform outside my door, so the moonlight could shine on your hair and make your skin glow like polished opal.”

Legolas shifted in his seat. The fellowship had robbed him of much of his privacy and such talk proved his undoing faster than he expected. He let his legs fall open, and Haldir looked down. He felt the weight of the marchwarden’s eyes on the bulge in his leggings and it made him shiver.

“I would have let you,” Legolas began. “I would have worn your marks with – Haldir, what’s wrong?”

Haldir’s brow had furrowed and he looked away, cheeks flushing.

“It’s no use,” he admitted. “I cannot…”

“Cannot…?”

“I cannot… rise. All this talk should be enough but it is not.”

“You feel nothing?”

“I _feel_ like I want you – I do want you. Would that I could, I’d bend over that sack of grain and let you have your way, but alas, there is… nothing. Nothing below. Nary a twitch.”

“It is not so hopeless as that, surely,” Legolas urged with an edge of desperation. He was still young, in elven terms, and the thought of being thus unmanned frightened him. “Have you tried to touch it?”

“With healers all around me looking on? Hardly,” Haldir snorted. “They’ve told me, you know. Not directly – but I hear them whisper about it. I’ll never rise from this bed again, nor will my organ. I feel I went to war a young man and came back an ancient.”

“Try it now – no one will disturb us.”

Haldir raised an eyebrow but managed to shift his arm under the blankets.

“Anything to please a prince,” he quipped, and kept at it a while. He did not look like someone in the throes of pleasure, his brow furrowed and his tongue between his teeth. After a few minutes, he gave up and fell back against the bed, head thudding against the bag of flour that was serving as his pillow.

“It’s no use,” he sighed. “It feels…  muffled. Distant. I may as well be palming a sword hilt for all the good this is doing. For the good anything is doing – the healers have nothing left to offer me. This is to be the future for Haldir of Lórien, then – an eternity spent lying on his back, looking at the ceiling, doing and feeling nothing. I’ll go mad, if I don’t fade first. You will go off and take your pleasure with another and I will still be here. You will save the whole of Middle Earth, and I will still be here. By the Valar, I hope someone at least remembers to deliver me to the ships, else I will still be here when all the rest of our kind have gone!”

Perplexed, Legolas held his tongue. The elves sat in uneasy silence, for Haldir had hinted at too many truths. Haldir grimaced and touched his scalp, eyes softening as his fingers felt the braidwork at his temple.

“Pity I could not be a love to you,” he murmured. “You have a talent for this. Your heart’s joy will be lucky with all that hair of his.”

“Heart’s joy?” Legolas asked. “What do you mean? Haldir of Lórien, why do you smirk at me so – what rumors have reached your ears?”

“Only that your father will be scandalized far more now than he would have been if you’d fraternized with me after all. My son, he will say – why did you resist the charms of that handsome marchwarden? At least he was your kindred – and your size.”

Legolas blushed to the tips of his ears, giving himself away before he could gather his wits and deny it.

“Hush,” he muttered at last, “you… you’re not so charming, talking me half out of my clothes one minute and repeating unsubstantiated gossip the next.”

“Peace,” Haldir chuckled, “I didn’t mean to wound you – in truth, the rumors are just that. Everyone thinks them preposterous, anyhow.”

Legolas nodded grimly.

“As it should remain,” he insisted. “He does not know, and I would not have him hear it from you – a stranger saying it is one thing, but you have enough authority to know better.”

Haldir reached for Legolas’s hand and clasped it fondly.

“Forgive me – I did not realize. We both carry burdens, then. Had I known, I would not have been so bold as to –”

“I would have let you, as I said. I would still. There is no future in the… in the other business. That door is firmly closed. I would have happily followed you through yours if only…”

“… if only I could walk through it.”

They returned again to silence, though this one was peaceful. Legolas broke it gently, still holding the marchwarden’s hand.

“If you cannot have my body, and I cannot give you my heart, would accept take my friendship instead? I fear the road ahead is dark and bleak – it would bring a light to my life to know I have such a confidant and comrade.”

“Of course,” Haldir nodded. “Of course – I should consider myself luckier for it.”

The door creaked open and the healer returned, a bowl of soup in her hands.

“It is time you eat something, Haldir of Lórien,” she said sternly. “We cannot have you waste away after so much has been done to save you.”

“If I must,” he groaned, pain streaking across his face as he struggled to raise himself up in bed enough to sit. He took the bowl and spoon in his lap and managed to give Legolas a tight smile.

“Visit me again, my friend,” he urged. “Do not forget me here in the grain-store.”

“I will come again tomorrow,” Legolas promised. “Luck to you, Haldir. Rest and don’t despair.”

“Luck to you, prince. Don’t be getting too lovelorn, now.”

Legolas blushed and took his leave, shaking his head and chuckling. Haldir – poor Haldir. In another world, they might have been lovers – not just for a night, either. He was still handsome and lovely, but the finality of Haldir’s rejection was not to be ignored. He had set his terms forth plainly – and besides, Legolas knew it was low of him to seek to erase the desire for one friend with the attentions of another.

“How fares your guard-friend, laddie?”

Legolas startled, alarmed at seeing the friend in his thoughts in the flesh. He feared for a moment that the candid nature of his conversation with Haldir would somehow show itself to Gimli, though he knew not how.

“He wakes, he speaks, and now eats soup. He’s frail, still, to say nothing of the wounds to his spirit, but… Haldir is strong. I think he will endure.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” the dwarf said earnestly. “Not that I’ve quite forgiven him for that business in his homeland, mind ye, but I can see he means a great deal to ye – and he’s a competent fighter, I’ll give him that.”

“He was doing his job, Gimli,” Legolas could not help but smile at the brusque tone his friend took, for there was an unmistakeable current of good-humor beneath it. “That is what guards do. Guard.”

“Guarding, aye, but making smart, smug little comments – nay, laddie, that’s a trait all his own.”

“Well, I for one am glad he lives to make more of them another day,” Aragorn chimed in, rounding the corner. “Gimli, Legolas – I would talk to you of our future plans, if you’d care to join me.”

There was a look in the ranger’s eyes that both the elf and the dwarf recognized – so much so that the coded speech was unneeded. It was there in the fear-flicker in his irises.

_Boromir worries me._

When hadn’t he? He’d been withdrawn and volatile before he was shot, but since? The man scarcely spoke a word, from shame or some invisible wound they could not say. He had nearly lost his life in the forest – it was quick thinking and luck that had seen Aragorn attack the orc archer before he had a chance to put an arrow through the Gondorian’s head. It was quick thinking and luck that had seen them clean and bind the wounds – two to the torso and one to the arm – and a veritable miracle that the projectiles had missed the internal vital bits. Still, it had taken all of Legolas and Aragorn’s combined knowledge of herbs and bushcraft, and all of Gimli’s skill at removing the arrowheads (for his rough hands could tinker finely with the metal – far more accurately than his travelling companions’) to save him. It had only gotten tenser since – Boromir knew the fellowship had uncovered his attempted treachery, his moment of weakness with the ring. He also felt responsible for Pippin and Merry being kidnapped, and his mood had been growing steadily blacker since. It had been Gimli’s hope – all their hope, really – that ‘a little war would do the grim lad good.’ Since the battle, however, he remained silent and sullen as ever. Worse.

“He’s talking to the pyre heaps again,” Aragorn admitted finally, under his breath. At this point, Legolas doubted it would do any good – people had already begun to notice the Steward’s son was behaving oddly.

Gimli and Legolas looked at one another and read mirrored worry in each other’s eyes. Without another word, they hastened and followed Aragorn out of the busy hall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dark and moody Boromir finds unexpected common ground in soldierly banter with fellow veteran Haldir
> 
> Haldir receives expected but regrettable news
> 
> (Boromir punts a head like a football)

* * *

 

“They think I’m going mad, you know.”

Boromir, son and heir of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, paused, as though to wait for a reply. He knew one was not coming – the charred bit of face he spoke to wasn’t liable to answer any time soon.

“I say ‘let them think me mad, then.’ I’m not – I feel more myself than I have since this wretched quest began. Just because I talk to you, they think I’ve disintegrated between the ears.”

He studied the orc head at his feet and gave it a gentle kick. It lolled to the side, charcoal-black and crumbling, mouth open in a silent scream.

“I envy you, a bit,” he added. “Who are you? No one. Who cares that you’re dead? Likely as not, no one. There is no burden of dishonour on your shoulders – you don’t even have shoulders, anymore.”

He rolled the head with his foot again. The nose broke off, crumbling to ash.

“Ugly thing,” he sneered. “But better to be ugly without than to carry ugliness inside yourself as I –”

“Boromir?”

The man looked in the direction of the voice to see a party of three hurrying towards him.

“Boromir,” Legolas repeated, frowning. “Are you… yourself?”

Boromir snorted and nodded dismissively. He would not speak to the living – not with a liar’s tongue. Slime and filth in his throat – it was to the dead alone he would dare speak now, for they would not recoil at the words of a traitor.

“Boromir, I had hoped you might join us for a meal,” Aragorn ventured gently. “We have much to discuss, and –”

Boromir looked pointedly at his arm – weakened, run through with orcish arrows, diminished. No more swordplay with such an arm as that. He was all but useless going forward, and all four knew he would be required to stay behind.

_As if they’d want you elsewise – you’d be a torch lit in a dry forest – one spark and you’d engulf the whole lot of them in flames._

“You’re frightening people,” Aragorn said, frustration grating in his voice like steel. “Please, Boromir, you know better than this. Come away from the pyre and carry yourself like a man.”

Boromir, in an act he regretted immediately, punted the head at his companions, then stalked towards the nearest door. He felt their eyes on him as he retreated inside, an obedient soldier in spite of himself.

Bitterness and anger churning in his guts, he stomped past strangers, uncaring if they saw the black look in his eyes and recoiled. _Let them see. Let them know – the son of Denethor is the weak point in the fellowship and brings dishonour on them all._

An explosion of raucous laughter startled him and he turned, following the sound curiously, half-annoyed it had disturbed his brooding, half-curious. Such a joyous explosion seemed odd in the wake of battle, where even survivors’ relief was muted.

It was coming from a small room to his left – a grain store. There was a soft patter of elvish, as incomprehensible to him as the babbling of a brook, and then another round of laughter, bright and clear as the peals of a bell.

Boromir struck the door hard enough to send it banging open. It was the elf captain, he realized – the injured one – trading stories with some of his men. They looked up, alarmed, and Boromir felt his cheeks blaze hot with shame. This was no threat, and he had intruded, nothing more than a brute in the eyes that stared back at him.

“You made noise,” he muttered. “Too much of it – aye. People were complaining.”

Something like doubt flickered in the captain’s eyes, but he nodded slowly, and spoke to his men in his impossible tongue. The soldiers departed, casting curious glances at Boromir as they did so.

“You think me too loud, son of Gondor?” he asked, and there was no mistake that those shrewd eyes recognized him. “As I recall, it is you who crashes through the woods raising rackets – you and your companions.”

“I could hear you at the end of the hall,” Boromir growled, anger and embarrassment at war within him.

“Perhaps you have simply forgotten the sounds of the living. From what I hear, you have a certain… _fondness_ for the dead.”

Boromir purpled, near-blind with rage at the implication.

“How _dare_ you – I would geld myself before I’d defile a body!”

Haldir blinked, alarmed at the outburst and shook his head.

“Forgive me, I meant… well, less offense than that. My command of your language is far from perfect. I meant only that you speak to them. Not… not anything more.”

The red haze lifted enough that Boromir caught his breath and nodded. The elf sounded sincere enough.

“Forgive me,” the man said thickly. “I misunderstood.”

“Let us forgive each other – there is no strength left in me for another battle,” Haldir winced, shifting on his bed. “Tell me, human, do you have feeling in that arm of yours?”

Boromir nodded, looking down at his hand. He closed it into a fist. Opened it slowly, finger by finger.

“Aye,” he said. “Some.”

“Does it ever feel the same as it did – only strange and prickling? I feel my feet – they shift restlessly beneath my blankets.”

Boromir looked at the twin lumps beneath the covers. They were still as stone.

“It is as though I have become a ghost of myself,” Haldir mused. “Have you seen anything like it?”

“Why ask me?” Boromir demanded, curious. “I am no healer.”

“No,” Haldir agreed, “but there are rarely elves who suffer such injuries as these. Either we survive and are healed or we succumb to our wounds. We do not… linger like this. Men, I’ve noticed, are hardy things. I thought perhaps you’d have seen something like this among your own kind.”

Boromir shrugged.

“I… can’t say I’ve known of it personally, but old soldiers complain of aches in limbs they no longer possess, from time to time. Seems normal enough, given the circumstances.”

Haldir nodded. He seemed troubled, and Boromir, uncomfortable, made to take his leave.

“Please –” Haldir held up a hand. “There is more I wish to ask you, soldier. Pray, close the door. I do not desire to tell the entire hall.”

Boromir obeyed before he could stop himself, standing tense and erect – some sort of unofficial stance not unlike that he took when at attention. It was second-nature to him, in the company of military fellows, human or otherwise.

“Your human soldiers – those who lose their arms and legs – what becomes of them?”

“Becomes… of them?”

“When they are returned from war. Where do they go? What do they – _do?”_

Boromir thought about it.

“Most of them return to their homes. If they have families, they remain with them. If they have none, they keep to themselves, or seek out other soldiers and tell stories of their glory days. If they can work, they do so. If they cannot, they take to the gutters and turn to begging.”

“They are burdens, then,” Haldir said softly. “I had hoped…”

He shook his head. He looked grave indeed, eyes averted, mouth pulled tightly downwards.

“Haldir, was it?” Boromir interrupted.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Haldir. Your name.”

“Ah… yes, although you pronounce it… differently.”

“Not all old soldiers are burdens – several become trainers, educators – tacticians.”

“What will you do?”

The question was straightforward and there was nowhere to hide in it. Boromir faltered, torn between anger and the tenderness he felt at the faint memory of comradeship, of speaking truths to living flesh that could speak back.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “My father will be devastated that I’ve crippled my arm, and disgraced that I –”

He stopped himself before he mentioned the Ring.

“Forgive me,” he said again, feeling strangely shy. “I ought to leave you to your bedrest.”

“And the riveting company of stone jars and a flour sack? I’d sooner talk to you. Have a seat, if you like.”

Haldir gestured to stool beside the bed and, dumbly, Boromir went along and sat.

“I think I understand you after all – talking to the dead enemy as you do. Who am I to tell you to desist – the bag in the corner – the barley – has been my confidant for days now.”

“It is an affectation,” Boromir blurted out hastily. “Nay – a deception. I would rather be left alone by the others and I find there are few who would deign to converse with a madman.”

“A wise tactic,” Haldir smirked. “One ill-fated day on the field of battle and everyone desires to play nursemaid, it seems.”

“You seem in good company with your men,” Boromir frowned, brow furrowed. Haldir nodded.

“A deception of my own. Do not misunderstand me – they are good, stout-hearted fellows all, and I am glad of their concern, but… I’d sooner ease their worries and see them away with smiles on their faces than have them turned into pitying malingerers desperate to restore their captain’s former glory.”

“That,” Boromir nodded, “I do understand.”

“You find the concern of your travel-mates chafing, then?”

“Aye – Haldir, I am a man and a soldiering one at that. I have no desire to be coddled and cooed over, handled with care. They look at me now as though they fear I might break.”

“And will you?”

It was hard to tell, sometimes, with elves, but Boromir sense no judgement.

“Not while I yet draw breath,” he declared, and Haldir nodded, smiling.

“That’s the spirit. Mayhap our flesh has failed us, human, but our warrior hearts beat on.”

They shared a wistful sort of chuckle at that.

“What will you do, Haldir of Lórien? Where do you go, when you are finished here?”

Haldir sighed and stared down at his legs.

“Wherever I’m taken, I suppose. I should like to return to the Golden Wood and see it once more – and to paint it, if I can.”

“You paint?”

“Not well, alas, but well enough, I hope, to capture the beauty of it, that I may carry it with me over the Sea.”

“You would follow your people, then?”

Haldir nodded.

“Likely as not – there is nothing to hold me here. My brothers wait to go West with me. I cannot abandon them.”

At this, Boromir’s face lit up, eyes sharp and curious.

“You have brothers?”

“Aye,” Haldir responded, “I have two. Younger than I – they look to me to lead them. I confess, I am not sure I’ll be much use to them now.”

“My brother Faramir would be better off if I had perished from my wounds, I think,” Boromir mused. “Or perhaps not. Our father has favoured me all our lives and I am not certain he would transfer the affection to the surviving son…”

He realized he was speaking too freely around this strangely understanding elf and made a hasty retreat.

“No matter – these are the troubles of men.”

“They are not so different from the troubles of elves, I think,” Haldir replied, “In fact –”

But he fell abruptly silence, head snapping back, neck arching and straining. Alarmed, Boromir bounded into the hall, bellowing for the healers.

“It’s the captain – he’s fitting, I think – hurry!”

The healers came at once, but by the time they arrived, Haldir had come back to himself, lucid, though frightfully pale and morose.

“It is all right,” he panted, hair sticking to his face with sweat. “Only I’ve just received word.”

He tapped his temple and the healers looked at one another, muttering in their mother tongue.

“I am… relieved of my duty,” he ground out through his teeth. His eyes met Boromir’s then, and held them, hot and angry as flame, both familiar and utterly otherworldly. “I have been released from service. My Lady sees fit that I should rest.”

His lips curled at the statement. When Boromir said nothing, he barked out a cruel laugh.

“Go, then, son of Gondor, and let the gossip come from human lips for once. No doubt it will spread like a sickness anyhow.”

He turned to the healers, waving them away.

“Be gone, both of you – be gone and done with it! I’ll have no special treatment now, for I am no captain!”

Stunned at the sudden turn of events and unnerved by the show of Galadriel’s reach of magic, Boromir did the only thing he could think _to_ do. He found Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, still muttering together – over him no doubt – and broke the silence he had maintained with them since Amon-Hen.

“Haldir’s been discharged from his duty,” he panted. “Legolas – I think you should speak to him. He is… frightful in fury.”

“Of course,” Legolas managed, and hurried off in the direction of the grain stores. Gimli shook his head in disbelief.

“But why would the Lady tell him so? To dismiss a warrior so soon after a wounding – ah, ‘tis a cruelty I would not expect from one so fair!”

“It is not a cruelty,” Aragorn intoned, “but a necessity. There is no time to wait and see if he improves – his men need a captain and a leader. No doubt one is already being appointed. There is no time to deliver a message on foot – the soldiers need order, and the Lady provides it.”

Boromir, for his part, looked at the pile of charred orcflesh, and the discarded head, a few paces from the rest.

“A necessity can be a cruelty also,” he muttered. “What, in this life, is not?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're operating with the premises that:
> 
> A) elves have sex for more than reproductive reasons  
> B) elves have sex for reasons beyond cementing marriage  
> C) soldiers are, in general, a randy, gregarious lot, and if left to their own devices, will likely wind up telling bawdy tales and snickering about bed-sport
> 
> Have some feels. Have some friendship. ALSO - re: bushcraft (cordage making) there's a great youtube video on turning inner tree bark into rope. I'll link it here so you can take a gander at it - it's pretty neat. You can, in fact, make pretty useful rope out of inner bark if you know what you're doing:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBj3zWf_AkQ

* * *

Beyond Hornsburg, the battle for Middle Earth raged on. Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli left the site behind – their part in things was not yet over. In Helm’s Deep, efforts to rebuild began, in a slow, disorganized way, as it was not yet peacetime, and resources were best left stockpiled, just in case. Mostly, people grieved, hoped, and waited for an end to the war – one way or the other.

Boromir… made cordage.

It was easy enough to make cordage – find some old wood and harvest the soft inner bark, and then it was all a matter of twisting and rolling. He made some, at first, as a distraction – only to have it taken away and used for something or other. He made more, and on it went, until he found he had been appointed a sort of unofficial cordage-maker.

There wasn’t anything wrong with such simple tasks as that, he supposed, but the thought galled him. He, a son of Gondor, making rope day in and day out.

He fumed about it as he worked, usually to himself, but occasionally to Haldir, who joined him sometimes, in a sunny spot where the wind was not so free, quiet and lost in thought. He’d been subdued since his dismissal, and most of the time, Boromir ignored him.

When his thoughts strayed to Gondor, to his father and brother, Boromir’s hands tightened. His latest strand of cordage pulled taut and snapped, and he cursed at the broken ends.

“Bored, are you?” Haldir asked, startling him. He had almost forgotten the elf was in the corner – moved there and left like an old piece of furniture no one knew what to do with or had the heart to throw away.

“It’s useless,” Boromir scowled. “Why am I sitting here, twiddling my thumbs and making yards upon yards of twine? Is this to be my future? If it is, I’ll make a rope strong enough to hang myself and be done with it.”

“You miss your friends?”

Boromir glanced at Haldir, whose face remained unreadable. He dropped his gaze to study the crudely-made wheeled contraption some benevolent craftsman had constructed for the elf. It made for a bumpy, uneven ride, but it let Haldir get around well enough, provided he had someone to push him. (More often than not, that someone was Boromir, these days. Everyone else had jobs to do.)

“They’re not my friends,” he insisted, because they weren’t, really. Companions, certainly. Brothers-in-arms… but friends? Friends made Boromir think of little pink-cheeked children flitting about in meadows holding hands and picking daisies. It spoke nothing of guilt and greed and pride, of days spent laughing and breaking bread followed by nights of sheer terror. It was entirely inadequate, as words went.

“You miss your family, then. Your home…?”

“My city, aye,” Boromir nodded, picking at the fibers of his ruined cordage. “My brother. Poor, dear Faramir – he’d make sense of all this… this waiting, make no mistake. He’s far more suited to sitting still and letting his brain work for the joy of it than I am.”

“He’s clever, then?”

“Cleverest out of the pair of us. I’ve more of a mind for tactics, but Faramir… he can think up all sorts. Not just book-learning, either – language, music… he’s a facility for all of it. When we were children, he could tell the most wonderful stories…”

Boromir fell silent. He felt bittersweet, thinking of his brother. A lifetime of having his talents and gifts ignored had dulled the brightness of the boy he remembered so fondly. Faramir the man was capable and sharp as ever, but he did not dream so freely, or laugh so much.

“My brothers are both clever,” Haldir remarked, “but I am the one with the best command of Westron among the three of us. Rúmil can make himself understood – if he applies himself – but poor Orophin is practically hopeless in anything but his mother tongue.”

The elf sighed, pain casting shadows in his eyes.

“He’s been appointed my successor, you know. Rúmil.”

“You have spoken more with your Lady?”

Boromir was unsure if you could call such strange communication speech. He hadn’t witnessed any of the fits since, but the memory of it was enough to disturb him still. Haldir nodded.

“She has assured me I am still… welcome among my people. That I would be given a warrior’s return – be honoured and praised and called a hero. She meant to retire me, not hide me away in shame.”

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

“I cannot imagine… all my kindred looking on and seeing me, as I am now – to see their pity… it would shatter me entirely. I’d sooner they’d forgotten me entirely. I’d sooner _she’d_ forgotten my brothers – dear Orophin. While Rúmil’s busy with my former duties, it will fall to the youngest to see his elder clothed and washed. For the rest of our lives in Middle Earth – and possibly even after we’ve gone over the Sea, though I hope not – he’ll be shackled to me as though by a chain, likely as not. I will need him to move me – to lift me… I cannot bear the shame of it.”

Boromir nodded.

“I can’t go home and see Faramir for much the same reason. My father will take his grief out on his second son – I know it already. This has always been the way in our house – ever since our mother…”

He shuddered.

“It’s all right for the clever ones to collect dust and spin fanciful tales for the young folks, but what sort of life is that for the likes of us? I’d give _both_ my arms to be back out there doing… _something._ Anything. This inaction is torturous.”

“If you like, we might switch – I’ve been fletching arrows for a week.”

“Here,” Boromir responded, and threw his cordage at the elf. Haldir caught it and shook his head, chuckling.

“You made a mess of this one. If I splice it back together, it will only be weaker for it. Always, it will break in this place, here.”

He held up the torn ends. Boromir’s throat tightened, for the words affected him more than Haldir could know.

_Always… break in this place here… is that the measure of your worth then? The weakest point in a bit of cordage? When the weight of the Ring bore down upon you all, it was you who crumbled first, and took the fellowship down with you._

Some of his anguish must have showed on his face, for Haldir looked at him with alarm.

“What is it, son of Gondor? You look terribly unwell.”

“Perhaps I am… there is disquiet in my soul, Haldir. I cannot tell you more than that – only that I carry wounds even your keen eye cannot see.”

Haldir pursed his lips, fingering the frayed end of his cordage.

“I will not ask you to say any more – these are private matters. I will say that you have my sympathy. I too have unseen burdens piled upon me, though I fear the rumors may have reached you already.”

Boromir cocked his head.

“Rumors?”

“Have I truly found the one man who has not already heard the news? It seems a shame to tell you – but it is not fair to keep you in the dark, I suppose. Haldir of Lórien is a lover no longer.”

“You do not mean – you were _unmanned?”_ Boromir asked with horror. He knew the Uruk-hai could be cruel, but to castrate a man was a level of savagery that shook even a seasoned warrior like Boromir to his core.

“Fear not – you needn’t picture something so grisly as that. Nay – I am intact enough – but the blow to my back cut some vital tie or other between the parts in question and the rest of me. My sex is as numb as my legs, now.”

There was no mistaking the bitterness in Haldir’s voice.

“That _is_ an unfair turn of fate,” Boromir exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine it. You feel… nothing? At all?”

“I feel a bit more than nothing,” Haldir admitted, “but not so much as to be of consequence.”

“I think I really _would_ hang myself if my pike was crippled and not my arm,” Boromir grimaced. “Ah… I’m sorry. I don’t… I’m not suggesting you should –”

“I know what you meant. Believe me – it’s as miserable as you think it is. I feel… diminished. No longer  – no longer… myself. Emasculated,” the elf muttered. “From a stallion to a gelding – or as good as. If I could, I’d walk myself over to that ledge there and throw myself off. Do you know – it’s not enough I cannot… perform – there have been women coming ‘round for days now. Widows, mostly – they… inexplicably make advances that they wouldn’t dare make if I was whole.”

“Some women are partial to soldiers – I suppose it follows that some are more partial to the wounded ones. They probably think their love alone can fix you,” Boromir sneered with the tone of one who’d heard the line before.

“Would that I was willing and able, I would have no strength left _to_ walk, for the way these human girls carry on!”

“Aye, well, you elves are more… reserved about such things. Must come as a surprise to you.”

“We are discreet, if that’s what you mean. We aren’t cold.”

“I never said you were.”

Boromir sighed and scratched his nose.

“If they come back to you, those maidens, send a few my way, won’t you? A bit of bed-sport would do me good.”

“You may take your pick from among them with my blessing,” Haldir shrugged, “but I do not think they’re after human men.”

“Why not?” Boromir laughed, “Are we so different?”

“I can’t say for certain, but I’ve come across my share of human lasses who would swear that there’s less chance of falling pregnant if they take an elf to bed.”

“Is it true?” Boromir asked. Haldir shrugged again.

“I haven’t the slightest idea. It’s a notion that’s served many a young _ellon_ well on his travels,” the former marchwarden winked. Boromir snorted.

“Oh, aye? And were you one such fellow, then?”

Haldir smiled by way of an answer.

“Does it shock you? Humans and dwarves alike seem to think they invented love-making, for all they attribute it to themselves. You mortals forget we are long-lived – we have had the time to become quite creative – or at least to discern what pleases us best.”

Boromir blushed at the frankness but laughed also.

“You are embarrassed?” Haldir teased him, “I thought you a soldier!”

“It is strange to hear such talk from someone so fair-faced,” Boromir countered, grinning. “But fair play to you – I had not thought of it in such terms, but I suppose a long life would lend itself well to such… study. I think, however, you underestimate the enthusiasm of men. We may live but a fraction of your many years, but we make good use of the time we have.”

“I do not doubt it,” Haldir chuckled. “I suspect every race holds itself to be the progenitor of all life’s many joys.”

“Aye, and none of its faults,” Boromir conceded.

They fell into an easy silence.

“There now, I’ve mended this for you,” the elf said suddenly, and threw the cordage back in Boromir’s lap.

Boromir ran the material through his fingers, stopping midway along the strand to give it a hearty tug.

“You’ll find no weak point after all,” Haldir remarked. “I mean it when I say it’s mended. An elven weave is strong and holds true always.”

Boromir studied the cordage and, sure enough, the weave changed partway down the strand from a simple twist method to something intricate and perplexing.

“How’d you manage this, then?” he said, fascinated. It looked as though the individual fibers had seen fit to entwine themselves in an entirely organic manner – as though the bark had simply grown into a length of rope.

“Deft fingers,” Haldir replied.

“With fingers so deft, it’s no wonder you have to drive the human girls away,” Boromir leered, and broke down into a fit of laughter, Haldir’s eyes shining with mirth, composure dissolving entirely, as he joined him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and shit gets gay and self-indulgent in that we have: guys being dudes, drunken shenanigans, and non-traditional erotic situations
> 
> because I can, because I like happy endings, because spinal injuries and neuroplasticity are complicated, and because elf magic, this falls into the realm of 'pseudo-accuracy' medically speaking. all my info has been researched, but without a definitive type of spinal injury, or even definitive info on what part of the back got hit, it's all a guessing game, so i'm trying to work it all out into something that works, plot-wise. but regardless, obviously not all injuries is same. if stuff gets too medically inaccurate - blame the elf magic.

* * *

It didn’t seem right, sitting in the corner while the world was saved. That’s not to say Haldir wasn’t glad it had been saved – he was immensely relieved that everyone’s sacrifices had amounted to something as glorious as overthrowing evil incarnate. It was just that, up until quite recently, he had expected to play a bigger part in it all.

It was made worse by the fact that he was the last elf in Hornsburg – and would be until his people returned to collect him. He could no longer return when he wished – he couldn’t ride a horse without being able to spur it or grip it with his knees. Besides that, word did not spread in a day, and the roads were not guaranteed to be safe when there were still bands of orcs unaccounted for. Haldir had managed to send a message home when the healers and remaining soldiers had gone – empty assurances that nothing would change for the worse, a few ‘I’m fine, I’m fine’s for Rúmil and Orophin, in amongst the official missives from Théoden to the Lord and Lady to thank them for the aid. He supposed that was more comfort than many had of late, but it still felt wrong to him, as though he would be forgotten entirely or seen as a hindrance. He could not imagine genuine warmth meeting him upon his return – only anxious fretting and fussing. Still, he knew better than to complain too loudly when the halls were full of orphans and widows in mourning.

Boromir seemed equally out of place in the peacetime dawn. He kept to himself – avoided even Haldir sometimes – his face so grim that people scrambled out of his way in fear that he’d strike them. He didn’t – he didn’t do anything but glower, really. It had replaced the habit of making cordage; he would pace, glare out of windows, and pace again.

It was on the third day of the post-war age that stunned acceptance began to give way to celebration. People sang in the halls, played instruments, laughed for the first time in months. The refugees – the children in particular – were in high spirits. Among the adults, drinks flowed freely, and people sought to share their exuberant joy with one another in the ancient, bodily way survivors sometimes do.

Haldir did not join them. On account of his legs, he could not maintain his fitness as he once had, and endless feasting would see him fattened and made soft. He had no use for the flirtations of yet more unattached young women, nor had he any desire to pretend he understood how the humans felt when he could remember things from their grandfathers’ time. He was not one of them, and he felt it keenly, reflecting quietly as he did from in his chair.

Boromir proved his salvation at last, appearing on the third night in the little courtyard wherein Haldir had ensconced himself with a bottle of wine under each arm and a goose leg in his fist. He sat down with his spoils on the window ledge opposite the elf and took a bite of his fowl by way of greeting.

“Yuh nuht celub’r’ting,” he remarked with his mouth full. Haldir nodded.

“Well spotted. I thank you for taking on my share of the feasting.”

“W’n a bite?” Boromir asked, swallowing. Haldir made a show of rolling his eyes, but he leaned in all the same and let the man jam the leg into his face. He took a hearty mouthful out of it and sighed happily – it _was_ good, even for heavy, human fare. He realized, in a distant sort of way, that he hadn’t eaten in at least a day. Boromir moved to retrieve the leg and Haldir chased it with his teeth.

“If you feel that way about it,” the man chuckled, “we’ll share.”

His arm bore an unsteadiness that spoke of drink, and he smelled of ale, but he was in a jolly sort of mood and Haldir found he didn’t mind the company, reminded of his own days on leave, easy camaraderie, and the simple pleasures taken with relish after a battle’s end.

“I can’t believe it’s over at last,” Boromir mused, sliding from his seat on the sill to the ground at Haldir’s feet. He leaned his back against the wall, legs bent at the knee, and opened one of the bottles of wine. “Truly, I did not expect I’d live to see an end to it.”

“Are you pleased?”

“Of course.”

“I mean, you do not wish you could have been there? Done more?”

Boromir shook his head.

“That Ring was no good for me – I ought not to have been around it. It… it affected me.”

Haldir kept his face expressionless – he had suspected as much might be the case from the way Boromir often avoided the topic.

“The Ring had a hold over stronger minds than ours,” the elf replied, thinking of his Lady. She had told him of her temptation – as a warning, he supposed – before he’d ridden for Hornsburg. He respected her all the more for her impenetrable will.

“I’m glad it’s gone,” Boromir said with finality. “And I hope the races of the world have learned their lessons from it.”

Haldir hummed in agreement, chewing slowly. He did not share such optimism, but it was a nice hope, nonetheless. A rough, square hand flailed by his knee and he handed back the leg of poultry.

“I suppose you’ll be leaving soon, then,” he asked, and pointed at the wine. Boromir passed it over, ripping off a large portion of meat from the goose bone as he did so. The human masticated loudly while Haldir drank. The wine was sweet and spiced richly – the sort of thing that would have set a fire under his skin, once upon a time.

“Aye,” Boromir exhaled with satisfaction, tossing the bare bone out the window and licking his fingers clean. He wiped them on the dirt and let his head loll back against the wall, eyes unfocused. “Back to father and Faramir. And work and patrols and… I don’t know. With an actual king of Gondor in charge, I’ll be taking on new duties, going forward, if they give me anything to do at all.”

“They will – a weak arm won’t count you out.”

“I fear I’ll have too much time and nothing to do with it.”

“You could marry,” Haldir suggested. “No better time than peacetime for that.”

“Who would I marry? I’ve had no time to court – I think my season has passed.”

“Nonsense.”

Haldir handed over the wine and Boromir took a long swallow.

“I can’t marry,” he said, his voice soft and fretful. “There is no one I might – I am unlucky in love at the best of times.”

“I took you for a man of the world.”

“I am,” Boromir nodded, “and perhaps that’s what’s spoiled it. I’ve spent a long time looking for the sort of lady men write songs about, and I’ve met plenty of charming ones along the way, but I can’t…”

“Can’t?”

“I can’t talk to them,” Boromir admitted. “Not approach them or talk of love – that’s different – but really _talk_ to them… and that was before, when it was just nightmares and ghosts from patrols and,” he shuddered, “– and Osgiliath.”

Haldir touched his shoulder gently, a silent gesture of permission to continue. Boromir picked at the ground beside him, finding a pebble and using it to trace a formless pattern in the dust.

“I never thought I’d see worse than that,” he murmured, “but I saw far, far worse in what the Ring showed me. Hideous grotesque scenes – Gondor raped and pillaged and burned and cowed into submission and my poor brother dead and my father mad and failure to do anything to –”

He broke off, eyes moist, and took a steadying drink.

“How can I talk of marriage, tell a girl I trust her and love her and would have her share my life when I can’t speak of the darkness that still clings to me like a sickness?”

“You’re talking now,” Haldir replied evenly. Boromir snorted.

“Aye – soldier-to-soldier, it is not so difficult. There is a common bond… what sort of girl would hear my inner-most thoughts without being frightened? If there is such a girl, she has hidden herself well.”

Haldir hummed at that and let his eyes settle on the coppery strands of the human’s hair. The moonlight made them look quite comely, for a human’s hair. Different, coarser, but strong and masculine and –

“What’re you doing?”

Haldir stilled his hands. Seemingly of their own volition, they’d commenced to plait.

“Braiding,” he said sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Are elves so inclined to weave things as that? You find any old stray head and start twisting?”

“It’s typical for a warrior of your rank and skill to have some sort of adornment,” Haldir retorted. “I’d think you no more than a green recruit, the way you have it now.”

“Go on, then,” Boromir replied, and angled his head slightly so that it bumped up against Haldir’s thigh. It was a queer thing, to see it and not feel it. It made Haldir’s fingers twitch. Every so often, the novelty startled him.

“So, you won’t marry,” he said more than asked as he worked. The human’s hair was greasier and heavier than he was used to. But it was much improved with a bit of braidwork. _Handsome,_ Haldir thought, and then marveled at the potency of the wine, as he doubted very much that thought would make itself heard, were he sober.

“Will you?”

Haldir thought about it and laughed.

“I’m no good for that sort of thing anymore. My wife would be dealt a poor hand, to be saddled with me – no children, no love in her bed… what sort of _ellon_ could hand down such a sentence.”

“Can you not at all, then? Still?”

“I don’t think it’s a question of time, really. I’ve had some luck with it, but not enough to suggest I can return to the way I was.”

“What sort of luck?” Boromir asked curiously. “Only the only spots I know for lads to take their pleasure are lower down than where you can feel.”

The question was impudent, but he asked it with such genuine concern that Haldir answered freely.

“The mechanics of it work – sort of. If I’m patient,” he admitted. “And I suspect on some level, I remember it’s _supposed_ to feel nice, so I have an echo of that from it. Still, it’s a great chore to raise the bloody thing, and the quality of the raising leaves much to be desired. I don’t think I could make love with it.”

“So strange,” Boromir sighed sadly. “I can’t imagine… but supposing there was a she-elf out there who didn’t like to have things put inside her. I’ve met a few in my time – women that is – human women. They don’t want anything to do with pikes – just keep to themselves. Maybe you could find yourself one of them.”

“I don’t think they care for males at all,” Haldir ventured. “Some _elleth_ find their own sex favourable.”

“Can’t see how that’d work,” Boromir mumbled into the mouth of the wine bottle. “A pair of pikes, makes sense, but two women?”

“What makes two men any different?”

The son of Gondor spluttered and made a forceful motion with his fingers. When that failed to enlighten, he turned his head, hiding it in the side of Haldir’s knee.

“Arseholes,” he said into the fabric of the elf’s leggings. Haldir snorted, and the pair broke into drunken laughter.

“It’s my understanding that women do things with their mouths and their hands,” Haldir ventured, dearly feeling the emptiness where once the talk would have roused him. “No need for arseholes to come into it.”

“Mouths and hands,” Boromir echoed dreamily, and, with the shamelessness of a drunken man not suited for mixed company, let his hand fall into his lap.

“I’ve heard they get up to all sorts of mischief,” Haldir went on, eyeing the human’s thumb as it rubbed indiscreetly over the ridge in his breeches. “Those wild women with their mouths and their hands.”

Boromir groaned faintly, palming unmistakeably at the head of his prick, trapped tight against his body beneath the fabric.

“Randy lot, you humans, aren’t you?” Haldir teased, and Boromir’s ears went red. He tugged his head away from the elf sharply, leaving his braid ends untied.

“Don’t know what you’re carrying on about,” he said gruffly. “I was scratching.”

“Scratching?”

“Aye. You know how those little biters come in camp and make a meal of your stones. It’s a misery.”

 _We’re not in camp,_ Haldir wanted to say, but instead, his wine-stained tongue wagged freely.

“If it’s true, you have my deepest sympathies.”

“You’ve had them, too?”

“Elves are flesh and blood creatures, same as you. I suspect Man’s little crawling friends get us confused more often than not. We had a miserable time of it once – must’ve been… fifty years ago or more. Traced it back to a younger fellow who’d gotten close to a human milkmaid, but once it worked its way into the ranks the soldiers passed it ‘round for months.”

“What, with no women?” Boromir asked, and then immediately paled in realization.

“I thought you said such things ‘made sense’ to you,” Haldir smirked. Boromir looked up at him and shook his head helplessly.

“Mechanically, aye, but – you don’t mean to tell me it’s _condoned_ among your troops?”

“Not condoned, no,” Haldir reflected. “Not really spoken of one way or the other. But regardless, I find those biting devils don’t care a bit for the gender of their hosts.”

“There’s truth in that,” Boromir nodded, settling back against Haldir’s thigh. “So… how was she?”

“She?”

“The milkmaid? How’d you find her?”

Haldir gathered up another bunch of human hair and began to plait, strand over strand.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I thought you – I misunderstood, I suppose.”

“Only a little. I did get a visit from those nasty biters – I just didn’t catch them from any human girl.”

“Oh,” Boromir said softly. He tensed a moment later as the words sank in.

“You… uh… with another…?”

“I told you – immortality breeds creativity. Turn around and I’ll do the other side if you like.”

Boromir touched the braids and, hesitating, made an unsteady rotation on the ground so that he now faced Haldir. The elf resumed his work.

“Didn’t take you for the type,” he muttered darkly, taking an almost angry swig of wine.

“Have you never tried it?”

“One does not simply try it as though it is permissible. It is not some… some imported tea or foreign spice,” Boromir insisted haughtily. “I am a son of Gondor!”

“And no son of Gondor has ever bent his body beneath another?”

Haldir asked the same way he always did – with nothing but mild interest in his tone. Boromir looked away and mumbled something incoherent.

“Pardon me?”

“My… my father doesn’t think highly of it.”

The look on his face betrayed a deep, unspoken hurt. Haldir stopped plaiting and let his hand rest against the crown of Boromir’s head.

“Humans have so little time to begin with, and they waste it on petty feuds and self-punishment,” he considered. “You’re very strange, you know.”

“You’re strange,” Boromir retorted, squinting into the wine bottle. “It has gone.”

“Open the other one, then.”

Boromir nodded, but his hands were too clumsy. Haldir took the bottle from him, his breath catching when their fingers brushed. It was disarming – to be outwardly so cold and unresponsive, yet inside to tremble at the memory of heat curling in loins he could no longer feel.

“You’re very drunk, son of Gondor,” he whispered, perhaps too fondly, for the drink was affecting him too.

“You are.”

“You sound like Rúmil as a child, talking like that. ‘You’re late to bed.’ ‘No, brother, you are late to bed’ and on and on…”

Haldir’s voice faded, his eyes suddenly wet with tears. _Sentimentality,_ he chided himself. _Rúmil is not lost – he’s only in Lórien, for the Valar’s sake._

“My – whoa – my Faramir’s the same,” Boromir slurred, staggering to his feet with difficulty. He stumbled over to the window and began fumbling with the ties on his breeches. Haldir, suddenly strangely shy, looked away, thumbing at a splinter in the armrest of his chair.

“You’d best be sure there’s none out passing beneath you,” he teased, but his voice sounded strained to his own ears.

“It’s a sheer drop down – no one’d be walking there.”

Boromir shook himself off and tucked himself back into his clothes. Haldir’s ears twitched. He realized, belatedly, that the human had asked him something.

“I missed that,” he apologized. “The wine –”

“I asked if you had to do the same. Only there’s no nurses ‘round to help you out of your chair.”

“Are you offering to –?”

Boromir blushed and looked away, nodding.

“Aye, I wouldn’t leave you to suffer.”

_Don’t let him – he’s not himself, and besides, you’d be using him._

“I’m heavier than I look,” was all he said. Boromir remained silent but lifted him out of the chair without difficulty.

“Elves are a light lot in general,” he rumbled, breath hot against Haldir’s ear. He kept his left arm wrapped tight around the warrior’s waist, and with his right hand, reached into his leggings and drew out his shaft.

“Boromir,” Haldir hissed and meant to add ‘I’ve no injury to my _hands’_ but the words didn’t come. He felt that moist air on his ear again and it tingled, as did the arm around his middle, rubbing against the border of feeling and unfeeling skin. He looked down and watched, mute, as a calloused thumb eased back his foreskin and aimed him. A shock of warmth made him blush and he wished, briefly but with surprising intensity, that the man behind him would take his ear-tip in his mouth.

“Go on,” the deep voice crooned, wine-sweet and quiet.

Haldir considered himself lucky that the healers could restore some degree of bladder and bowel control, and a bit of sensation – enough that he felt the cold wind, and the faint pressure of the son of Gondor’s hand on him. He felt absurdly grateful that he was able to keep from soiling himself – not for the dignity it brought him, which might have been understandable, but, selfishly, because it allowed for this – this hand upon him, comrade-helping-comrade. Part of him wanted to never urinate again if it meant being held like this for hours or days or months – it was a ridiculous thought, and he forced it out of his mind as hastily he could as he did his best to communicate his wishes to his lower half. When the stream began in earnest, he heard Boromir sigh in sympathetic relief behind him, and though he couldn’t tell from where he was, the elf realized he hoped that the man was hard for him.

When he was done, Boromir shook him gently and put him away, turning him around as though he weighed less than a feather.

“What sort of wife would do a thing like that?” Haldir managed, voice thick. “Who would have me?”

Boromir responded by leaning in, keeping him pinned upright against the wall, and kissing him squarely on the mouth.

He was drunk of course – terribly drunk – and this was an even more terrible idea. Boromir was Haldir’s only friend in the area, and to squander such friendship on a tumble would be an awful waste. Still, it felt so good to be held again, to be kissed – oh, but each kiss felt like the best of his life! His lips had never been so sensitive before, and he felt them swell with blood, tongue tracing every ridge in the human’s mouth, teeth scraping, breath coming fast and hot. His face was afire, scraped raw by Boromir’s whiskers – it was too much to take after so long spent alone, without pleasure.

“This is not a wise course of action,” he panted against Boromir’s chin, “and you’re sure to regret it.”

Boromir grunted in response and sucked hard on the elf’s white neck, making him groan desperately. He felt around between them and sure enough, Boromir was stiff and solid as the trunk of a tree.

“Hair like a lass,” he groaned, or something close to it.

It was over quickly – Haldir closed his fingers around that straining bundle and gave it a few weak rubs, too clumsy for much else. Boromir whined, nostrils flaring, and the cloth beneath the elf’s hand grew wet. The man had the good sense to lower him gently back into his chair before turning to make a quick escape.

“Boromir – I can’t – push me back to my room.”

The human froze, then, ever the good little soldier, returned to his side. He didn’t speak again until they were at the grain store, and then, only when Haldir first deigned to speak to him.

“Let’s have no ill-will between us – please, Boromir.”

If he sounded more frightened than he ought to, well, so be it. Haldir did not want to lose his friend.

“You didn’t take advantage – you were… a joy. Don’t punish yourself for this.”

Boromir nodded, turning away.

“I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, and there was no mistaking his humiliation. “Let’s forget it.”

Before he could reply, Boromir was gone, leaving Haldir alone to help himself to bed. It was a laborious process, and afterwards, he lay awake, twitchy and unsatisfied. Desperate, he sucked two fingers into his mouth and tried to touch his ear, imagining it was the human’s tongue that lapped at him, but it was no use. The moment had taken some effort to build up, and now it was gone.  Still, the memory of it made him ache for something – some way to achieve release. He could think of nothing, but he still found himself exploring his body hopefully, chasing that elusive feeling until dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to clarify things:
> 
> Haldir's realizing he has gained heightened sensitivity in various erogenous zones, as well as the 'border zone' between what he can and can't feel on his mid-section. Which will ultimately permit him to have some pretty good psychological orgasms and comfortable love-making down the line.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a tiny filler chapter but it's necessary for plot  
> I've done a bit of a time jump because I want to get to the next part of the story asap because I don't this thing to be 80000 words long, so we gotta move it along.

* * *

_Thwick! Swish!_

The arrow cut through the air in a perfect arc and landed dead center in the target. Haldir allowed himself a small smile of victory. His aim was true – at least this had not changed.

Wheeling himself about in the clumsily-built chair was physically demanding, but he was stronger than he looked. In the months since his injury, he had been training, improving slowly but surely, and now, with some effort, he could move about freely.

Still, he was huffing and puffing when he made it to the target to retrieve his arrows, bow balanced awkwardly on his knees, arms pumping, and was so distracted by the exertion he didn’t notice the human standing by the target until he was too near to get away.

“You’ve picked a dangerous place to stand, son of Gondor,” he panted, struggling to catch his breath. Boromir handed him his arrows, collected and neatly grouped together, and nodded.

“I know better – I watched from just there, by the wall. You’re a formidable opponent, even without your legs.”

Haldir replaced the arrows in the quiver he’d slung over the back of his chair and folded his hands in his lap.

“Is there something you need?” he asked. Three weeks since the encounter in the courtyard and Boromir still couldn’t meet his eyes. He couldn’t help but feel a flicker of disappointment at that.

In the intervening period, Haldir had spent time being honest with himself. He was good at that when he had to be – such was the benefit of an elf's lifespan. After the first few hundred years, one ran out of places to hide from oneself. So, honestly, he faced the truth. He had enjoyed the human’s touch, the closeness – that was easy to admit. That he felt such strong sentiments towards him was harder to wave away. Haldir harboured no illusions – he knew what awaited the elvish heart that bound itself to a mortal one. He had, privately, gone as far as to feel self-righteous – for he would never have such an attachment – there was no Man, he had once believed, that could be worth such sacrifice. He had respected Arwen’s choice – pitied Legolas for his attachment to the dwarf – but he had never empathized with it. The old Haldir would never have accepted such an unbalanced outcome - a moment's joy repaid in long, miserable, gnawing grief.

In a matter of months, centuries of certainty-of-self had been overturned. Boromir may have been a Man, but he had a wisdom about him that cut Haldir to the core. A warrior’s spirit – a soldier’s purpose guided them both. They were alike and unlike one another, familiar and unfamiliar, and yet they were fundamentally and entirely honest in their interactions. Even now, Boromir could hide nothing – his face revealed everything – guilt, shame, and a pervading loneliness that drove them back to one another’s company, no matter what divided them.

It was something Haldir hadn’t realized he could have found in a partner. It was a level of understanding that seemed ludicrous, and yet, somehow, he felt as though it was the most natural thing in the world, this… concern and care he felt.

Haldir the marchwarden had been unmade with a single blow to the spine. Boromir, in the courtyard, had remade him into something altogether different, but functional and… and _enough._

He hid it not because he liked to deceive the human, but because he feared the loss of the friendship that blossomed between them. If Boromir truly did regret his actions, then the friendship would have to suffice. To lose that as well would be too much to bear – Haldir had very real concerns that such a thing would stagger him at this stage of his life – that he might even fade as a result.

“I’d like to apologize,” Boromir said stiffly.

“For collecting my arrows?”

“For… for my behaviour, when I was in my cups. It wasn’t… it wasn’t right of me, to use you like that, and then to leave – I panicked. I am sorry.”

Haldir blinked at him.

“You weren’t some animal forcing me – I was glad of the attention.”

Boromir looked at him in disbelief.

“You can’t have been – I mean – you can’t even –”

“Leave me to worry about it, won’t you?” Haldir hissed, a little more vinegar in his tone than necessary. He softened his voice and looked up pleadingly. “I am still myself in mind, if not in body. I am worldlier than you give me credit for, and I know my own wants. It was a night of celebration. I wanted to partake. You were the only one who thought to include me.”

Boromir furrowed his brow.

“So, it was convenience, then?”

“Do you think it was convenience? Truly? Don’t waste your breath on this showmanship – you know as well as I do that we understand more of each other than we should. I liked making you spend. I’d do it again if you let me. I’d like your friendship more even than that, if it’s all you’ll give me. I have lost enough that I don’t care to lose something I hold so dear.”

Boromir’s face coloured. He faltered, seemingly at a loss for words.

“Your candidness undoes me,” he managed at last. “I had prepared what to say – more or less – and this… I wasn’t expecting –”

“Would you rather I lie to you? I thought you the type to value practicality – as I do.”

“I do!” Boromir nodded. “I’m glad. I just… I came to do more than apologize.”

Haldir steepled his fingers.

“I’m listening.”

“I heard there won’t be anyone to fetch you for another month at least.”

“Unfortunately, you’ve heard correctly.”

“Well… seeing as I’m needed back in Gondor, I thought I might travel with you. I could take you to your people directly or… or you could come and see my city – get a picture of her before you… go where you will.”

 _I am at a crossroads,_ Haldir thought. _If I break away now, I may yet go over the Sea with my heart light and free. If I go with him, I may become attached to the point that leaving becomes impossible._

“I am… I need to think on it,” the elf admitted. “You ask more of me than you know.”

“I think I know enough,” the human murmured. “I know I’ve come to rely on your company – more than I should. I know I was… changed by that night.”

_Aye, but do you know what you ask of **me?**_

“Would you give me a week to consider it?”

“I would. Would you give me your friendship, in the meantime? I’ve missed our talks, of late.”

When Haldir agreed, the open face of the human showed such joy that the elf suspected he already knew his choice. He kept it back behind his lips, smiling his consent when Boromir offered to push him back indoors.

_If the world has no need for two old, broken soldiers, then let us take the time for ourselves. Have we not earned such a boon?_

Haldir let the man steer him over some uneven stones, wheels bouncing on the rough terrain.

_If we haven’t, I’m claiming it regardless._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a fair bit of POV switching in this chapter but honestly the porn wrote itself and then the emotional stuff just followed suit so idk. I hope it's coherent. 
> 
> (Damn I love writing emotional sex scenes.)

* * *

It was a perilous journey, even with the roads safer than they’d been in years. Travelling as a pair – even a pair of skilled warriors – not only put Haldir and Boromir at risk when they ran up against rogue bands of leftover orcish soldiers (which, thankfully, had only happened once,) but also it meant that the going was terribly slow. They traveled light – just enough gear between them to make functional camp. Haldir could not ride alone – he had yet no new way of spurring a horse – so they rode a single, hardy animal. Haldir was light enough that the horse could manage both males, but it was arduous, and they had to rest frequently or risk injuring the beast.

Between them, Boromir sensed something was building. Haldir watched him more than was necessary, and always with an odd, melancholic fondness in his eyes. He could not claim to know the minds of elves, but he knew _his_ mind, and his thoughts lingered on the former marchwarden. Since the events at the courtyard – and he skirted around calling them by a more specific name even to himself – Boromir had developed a fixation which had only been encouraged by Haldir’s confession. He had enjoyed embracing the human. Boromir, likewise, had enjoyed embracing the elf, and had found himself thinking on it multiple times a day when there was little else to do but watch the road and listen to the soft huff and snort of the horse as it toiled. It worried him, sitting uneasily on him like ill-fitting armor. The son of Gondor could not go around bedding elves for the fun of it – especially not male ones. If word got back to his father, there would be a grave punishment waiting for him in Minas Tirith.

_I’m a grown man, and a warrior besides. Am I to report back to my father every time I wipe my arse or swat an errant fly? I have earned my privacy, have I not?_

Infuriated, Boromir knew this was far worse than what went on in little farming villages and mines. His situation was primarily a product of his heritage – his family’s position. If he’d been some sort of sheep farmer, it would never have been so difficult to hide his trysts – just ride out to a field somewhere and have a romp in the grass. It was much the same during the war – with everyone busy trying _not to die_ it was easier to skirt around the rules. Peacetime meant routine, and routine meant a watchful eye and a strict schedule.

 _Ah well,_ he thought, adjusting his hold on Haldir as the elf shifted in the saddle. _At least Faramir will be there, and it will do my heart good to see him again._

“You are melancholic,” Haldir remarked, breath hitching as Boromir’s arm tightened around his midsection.

“I’m not –”

“You are. You keep sighing on my ear.”

Boromir sighed.

“I suppose there’s no hiding anything from an elf,” he grimaced. “Very well. I’m being ungrateful, if you must know.”

“Ungrateful?”

“I’m pitying the woeful situation of one who survives to peacetime. It is not the sort of thing about which one _should_ feel bitter, I expect, but there it is. In war, there is no shortage of diversion. The future, from where I’m standing, looks terribly dull.”

Haldir hummed in agreement.

“I can appreciate such a sentiment. What sort of diversion did you have in mind?”

Boromir faltered, uncertain if he heard some flickering warmth in the elf’s tone. Facing away as he was, Haldir had the advantage of hiding his expression from view.

“Uh… drinking. Working. Killing things, I suppose. That sort of thing,” he said, stiffening in every sense of the word.

“Is that all?”

Haldir looked back over his shoulder now and, if there could be any doubt, looked pointedly in the direction of Boromir’s lap. He couldn’t actually see from that angle, and there was no way he could feel it, numb as he was, but at the questioning embarrassment in the human’s eyes, he smiled impishly.

“I can hear the hitch of your breathing – see the flush of your skin. You’re hot as a fire, eager as you are.”

Boromir did not deny it.

“I find I grow weary of riding,” the elf continued. “Would you be so good as to find a soft patch of grass to lay me down? I am saddle-sore even if I cannot feel it.”

The human managed a nod and clambered awkwardly down off the horse, leading it off the road and into the trees a little way, until they came upon a secluded clearing. The mossy ground looked soft indeed and Haldir let himself be eased out of the saddle and gently arranged on the grass. He patted the lush greenery beside him once Boromir had tied the horse’s reigns to a tree, and his smile turned feral as the human approached him.

“You,” he said throatily, “have made me wait. Are all the men of Gondor so inhospitable?”

Boromir worried free a buckle on his armor.

“I did not mean any rudeness by it, only it seems a cruel liberty to take pleasure with someone who cannot experience it themselves.”

“You _are_ my pleasure,” Haldir countered. “You look like something out of a tempting dream – handsome and wild and gruff in that way you human men often are.”

“You have a fondness for human men, then?”

“Every race has its beauties. I happen to think you are one of Man’s finest.”

Boromir blustered at that, blushing at the praise. He was used to compliments about his skill as a warrior, about his leadership abilities and his loyalty to his people, but to be looked at with the way men look at fair young women, with predatory hunger, made him mortified and delighted in turn.

“Rest your head on the earth with me – smell the sweet grass. Let it tickle your skin and let my mouth follow. I would have mouthful after mouthful of you until my belly burst, I ache for it so. Do not tease me, after denying me for so long.”

Haldir said something else – a murmured bit of elvish, though if it was an endearment or another command, Boromir couldn’t say. He disrobed as hastily as he could until he was stripped to his skin – a process which took some time, even with him trying to work quickly. Once he was bare, he turned his attention to Haldir’s pliant body, peeling away mail and leather and setting them all gently aside.

“Have you much experience in taking your pleasure with men?” Haldir asked softly, craning his neck to press a kiss to Boromir’s prickly jaw.

“Nay,” he admitted. “I find myself on uneven terrain. Even if I had – you’re…”

“An elf?”

“A-and… I mean, your injury, I – I hate to mention it –”

“Do not fear to speak of it – I don’t. I feared it when it first befell me because I could not imagine my life continuing. Now, I find I can still hit a target dead in the center. I can still ride a horse – with some assistance. I can still entice ravishing men into bed – truly, I am not ashamed of my situation. Please, don’t shoulder shame on my behalf.”

“I won’t,” Boromir agreed readily, “though I will admit it’s a bit of a conundrum, what you get out of all this.”

“I told you – I have ways of enjoying myself.”

“I meant your choosing me,” the human laughed, shaking his head. “You say such things – _ravishing,_ I mean, really! I’m not some maid you need to woo with flattery.”

Haldir shrugged.

“Would you have me lie to you? You’re virile and strong and upright – I admire you for your bearing as much as your looks.”

Something passed over Boromir’s eyes at that. He hid it well, but Haldir was an observant elf – ever a watchman – and he caught the flash of grief for what it was.

“You are not unworthy of this, son of Gondor. Many have been tempted by the Ring. Few have managed to truly come back when they felt its pull in their heart as you did. If anything, you stand before me a testament to the virtue of Man, not its failings.”

“I’ll stand for you for less than all that,” Boromir admitted, and sucked the lobe of Haldir’s ear into his mouth. The kindness, the tender words, had soothed him to the core, and in place of the pain he had grown so used to feeling, he felt desire blaze with new and hopeful exuberance.

“You stand easily,” Haldir chuckled, and palmed at the evidence, making the human groan. “And for both of us, now. I would have you stand for no one else.”

He squeezed his prize possessively. Boromir keened.

They fell into a quiet calm, Haldir’s spit-slicked palm sliding over Boromir’s hot sex. The human groaned softly, let himself be kissed the filthy, wet kisses he’d have expected from a whore and not a soldier. Haldir seemed, true to his word, to be enjoying the experience. He hummed with enthusiasm as he pumped the flesh in his hand, reaching with his spare fingers to flutter feather-soft over the broad, heaving chest of his companion. He traced freckles and coppery hair up, up from the belly, danced along a sweat-damp clavicle and down a muscled shoulder, until he came to the first of the gnarled, pitted scars of orcish arrows. Boromir flinched at the touch, but Haldir only paused long enough to kiss his fingers, and to press that kiss to the jagged, uneven tissue on the soldier’s arm.

“Bring yourself up towards my face,” he instructed, “and you may use my mouth.”

Boromir didn’t need to be told twice. Soon, Haldir was faced with the head of his organ, deep red and gleaming, beading with moisture.

“Use me roughly, my friend – I will not break.”

He suckled the tip into his mouth. Hands found his head, tangling in his hair and clinging on as Boromir rocked forward. Haldir reveled in it, nostrils flaring, eyes squinting shut as he adjusted to the intrusion. He wiggled his tongue. The human cursed and set a brutal pace.

Haldir's scalp stung where his hair was pulled, and the prickles of pain sent little tremors of arousal down his neck that made his upper back itch. The taste of a day’s worth of sweat, heady musk, acrid tang made saliva well up in his mouth and spill down his chin and into the grass with every thrust. Boromir’s hair, long at the base of his sex and wiry, brushed his face, and when the human shifted, a hand rubbed hard and clumsy against Haldir’s ear.

“Ah,” Boromir whimpered, and Haldir caught sight of moisture on his cheeks. He redoubled his efforts, went as far as to try his luck and use his teeth. Some men hated it, but it seemed he guessed right, for Boromir withdrew hastily, but not before a pulse of ejaculate landed on Haldir’s tongue. Rope after rope of semen fell in hot globs against the elf’s swollen lips, drool-covered chin, and flushed neck. He groaned aloud in delight at the sensation, which he felt keenly. He amused himself by cleaning up with a corner of Boromir’s clothing. Boromir, too spent to notice, remained on his back, panting, for long enough that Haldir thought him to be asleep. All at once, the human disproved that assumption, head lolling to the side, meeting Haldir’s eyes.

“Did you enjoy that?”

“I did,” Haldir conceded, “and I’d like to continue, if you would.”

“You’ll have to give me time,” Boromir countered, sitting up on his elbows. “I don’t know about the stamina of elves, but –”

“I thought you might give me some attention,” Haldir elaborated. Boromir nodded hastily.

“Of course – of course, I wouldn’t deny you! I’m not such a brute as that – that is, not… well. I don’t admire how I left you, that time at the window, only… what can I do? You cannot feel it if I do as you did to me.”

“No, but I can _feel._ When you pulled my hair, touched my ears, I could feel it. When your arms were around me at the window, I could feel it. When you kiss me, I feel it and it is so much more than kissing ought to be.”

“How _does_ it feel?” Boromir asked curiously, reaching out to rub a calloused palm over Haldir’s midsection. The elf smiled in satisfaction and sighed softly.

“It feels… both like and unlike what I’d known before. It is a tingling sort of pleasure – there is no burning fire in my belly, but there is a tightness all over – a slow build up of sensation.”

Boromir moved closer and sucked at the elf’s nipples in turn, alternating between nips and swipes of his tongue. Haldir cried out, hands going to the human’s hair.

“And how does _this_ feel?” Boromir asked, facial hair leaving the pale skin on Haldir’s pectorals rubbed red.

“Like drops of cool water pattering over me.”

“And this?”

He caught a nipple and twisted hard.

“Ah! Like an irritant herb, burning hot and throbbing.”

Boromir withdrew his hand but Haldir shook his head.

“It is a good burn.”

The human, emboldened, kissed his way to the tuft of hair beneath the marchwarden’s arm. Even after days on the road, the elf smelled sweet and cleaner than any man. It was no chore to bury his face in that sensitive patch and tease the skin he found there with kisses. Haldir shuddered, head back against the earth, eyes shut tight.

“Look at me,” Boromir murmured, “don’t be thinking of some pretty elven lass when I’ve got you on your back.”

Haldir responded by tossing his head, exposing his neck to a press of teeth and tongue that left a mottled bruise against the ivory column of his throat.

“My ears,” Haldir whimpered. “Boromir – _please,_ I’m…”

He trailed off. He couldn’t say he was close – close to _what?_ Yet he felt a sort of building anticipation, as though he balanced on a precipice he’d never known existed.

“Please,” he begged again, near whined, for he wanted desperately to follow that elusive feeling to its end, to know its limitations and its strengths.

Boromir did not keep him waiting. He sucked the entire tip of Haldir’s ear into his mouth, tongue lapping obscenely at the whorls and curves of cartilage and tender, twitching skin. As soon as his lips closed over their prize, they were gone, the heat replaced with Boromir’s hand, pinching the tip of the ear and stroking it with a familiar rhythm. He took Haldir’s fingers in his mouth and swallowed them greedily, until they bumped the back of his throat. The elf stared down at him in surprise, watching him gag, watching his eyes fill with tears. He didn’t back down – he pushed through, even when the tears spilled over at the discomfort, throat working against the digits pressing in, until suddenly something yielded and he opened for a deeper shove. He imagined it must have been similar to what Haldir felt when he’d sucked him, and he appreciated it all the more, for it was an awkward sort of feeling, having his mouth crammed full, spit welling up, having to breathe through his nose and mind his teeth. It took more skill than he expected, but if Haldir minded his inexperience, he didn’t say so.

Haldir did not say anything, in fact. He lay quite still, thoughts drawing inward at the onslaught of sensation. He felt a warmth spread over him, nothing like the short intensity of climax. This was something else – something slow and borderless. His elvish senses, already heightened, were pushing far beyond what he had thought them capable of. He could feel every blade of grass against his back, every bead of sweat rolling down his torso, every fluttering contraction of Boromir’s throat against his fingertips.

It became too much. It overwhelmed him.

“Enough,” he cried in a broken voice, and began to weep. Boromir, alarmed, dropped his hand immediately and scrambled up beside him. Haldir shook his head, gesturing uselessly, and he began to laugh, tears flowing down his cheeks, words failing him.

_Joy. Pure and honest joy. Alive Alive Alive at last! O, wonder – he could not have believed it – he was himself, and not himself. Stronger where he’d broken – strong as elvish plaiting. Rebraided where he’d come unwound – alive, alive, ALIVE!_

“Come here, you glorious creature,” he implored, and met Boromir’s lips for a delving, hungry kiss. He kissed and kissed until his lungs burned, and then drew back, grinning absurdly, nuzzling up against every bit of the man that he could reach.

“Thank you,” he breathed at last, and kissed the human’s cheek. “You have allowed me the honor of sampling a true delight, and my life is richer for it.”

“You’re quite a delight yourself,” Boromir replied in good humor. A worried look then stole across his face.

“What troubles you?” Haldir asked softly. “Your brow is creased – what can I do to soothe you?”

“Nothing you’ve not done already,” Boromir answered. “Only… I feel I’ve been a fool. I spent so much time talking myself out of this and now we share one another’s company when we’re both due to go our separate ways. I should have trusted your judgement and put my shame aside.”

“You cannot discard your feelings so easily – you have a sense of duty that I can respect, even if it does make you a bit of a martyr.”

“Aye, but… in truth, I will have plenty of time to feel ashamed about this when I’m home again with my father breathing down my neck. I’ll have to find a wife and – and have children, I suppose – and –”

“– and if you choose to, you will have ample time and, I am sure, your pick of women, and I will still thank the Valar for letting me share these moments with you.”

Haldir smiled at him fondly.

“We will face that sadness when we must. In the meantime, I should like to wash and perhaps to eat before we get back on the road.”

“Right.”

Boromir seemed to take pleasure in the command. Militaristic certainty was familiar to them both, as was the comfort it provided, Haldir supposed. As he watched the man’s bare backside as Boromir walked off with a waterskin in the direction of a babbling stream, he whispered his joy at all they shared to the trees, and the leaves rustled in happiness. He felt such certainty that his heart thrilled with it – if Boromir would have his love, he would follow Lady Arwen’s path and make his home wherever the son of Gondor went. If he would refuse it, then Haldir would not fade in grief, but carry the joy of their union in him forever, for the affection he felt in Boromir’s tenderness told him that any rejection would be for duty’s sake and nothing more, and that the marchwarden could understand.


End file.
